Being left or right can be a relevant factor in the US elections

01/02/2016

Being left or right can be a relevant factor in the US elections
Dexterous voters tend to elect candidates that are to the right of ballots 15% more than lefties, as an experiment in the US
People develop some kind of unconscious favoritism favorable side they think is good, even for things that do not require use your hands
It is not yet known why humans have a preference for one hand right in particular, instead of using either the two, as do other primates
Righties and lefties think, feel and act in slightly different ways and these differences can influence what they buy, what they find attractive and even who they vote. This is the conclusion of a study that was presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
In particular, Professor at the University of Chicago Daniel Casasanto has determined that righties tend to choose people or products that are placed on the right, while lefties tend to choose those located on your left.
Casasanto finding may have political consequences, since, according to the results of their research in an election righties tend to choose the candidate whose name appears on the right side of the ballot 15% more than lefties. In Spain each ballot corresponds to a party, but in the US all presidential candidates appear on a single ballot. On this has been done the study.
The explanation offered by this research is that people develop some kind of unconscious bias in favor of the side they think is good, even for things that do not need to use their hands.
The body can determine emotions
Obviously not all people are physically identical and the basic idea behind the research Casasanto is that the bodies of some humans differ from others in such a way that makes interact differently with the world around them. This researcher has spent years studying how these differences can shape our brains and change our way of thinking.
Previous studies have already shown that laterality, or the domain of one side of the body on another, may have implications in different areas and even left-handedness may offer a competitive advantage in sports such as baseball, boxing, hockey or fencing . But how does it affect the rest of the population being left handed or right handed?
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The tennis player Rafa Nadal learned to play left despite being right-handed EFE
Changes in the brain
Most cognitive functions do not change by more than one hand to another use. Language, for example, is found mainly in the left hemisphere for most people, whether right-handed or left-handed. However, there are emotions that are closely linked to certain actions and the hand with which we carry out.
Casasanto study determined that if the hand that is commonly used is changed, even for a few minutes, you can get to change the way of thinking of an individual. The conclusion of this research is that the way we use our hands can also determine how they are connected emotions in the brain.
For example, shares of approach, such as using a sword, are often made with the dominant hand, while shares of evasion, such as those made with a shield, are often made with the nondominant hand.
In a previous study, Casasanto argued that there is a relationship between these physical actions of approach and avoidance and emotional impulses that lead us to approach or to avoid certain people or social situations. This study was able to show that, contrary to what was thought, the brain regions that control these emotions are not fixed but are reversed between left-handed and right-handed people.
The only primates ambidextrous
Although investigations Casasanto provide information on how it affects laterality brain is not yet known why humans have a preference for one hand, the right usually, instead of using either the two, as do the rest primate.
Some studies with chimpanzees show they tend to do more with one hand when walking upright, while when they do fours no preference not appreciated. So many researchers believe that having a dominant hand we offered some kind of evolutionary advantage when we started walking upright.
Other researchers have linked humans with laterality of the speech region known as Broca's area, is in the left hemisphere and the fact that this hemisphere is the one that controls the right side of the body. The importance of speech in our evolution has led some scientists to suggest that this may be the reason for our favoritism on this side.